What to do - blown engine

[jmanng]

Well, I had a bit of bad luck the other day with my 2000 mustang. Driving to work a valve spring broke and the valve dropped into the cylinder. Found the spring seat and valve retainer sitting in the head. Spark plug was mashed and I also thought that I saw some anti-freeze through the port (quick check of the dipstick didn't show any - but the hoses in the top end seem to be devoid of coolant).

Only had 194,000kms on it, not that much really. I'm basically considering the engine to be a complete write-off and debating my options:

a. scrap it and get what I can as-is for complete car or look at parting it out

b. look for a wrecker engine, told likely $800 - 1000, will make some calls tomorrow. I've kinda grown tired of working on cars and it's been some time since I've replaced an engine, darn cold lately too.

c. buy another mustang and have a parts car or another ford vehicle with 3.8 donor motor

d. buy a cheap car $1000-1500 for now

e. look at buying a new car (but I hate paying our crazy taxes and insurance rate... you say Canada ehh?)

f. oh yeah, pay to have someone tear it out, rebuild and re-insert... $3000 (decided this one is out).

In regards to ford 3.8l motors, are there specific years to go for, and are there any to avoid ? Or is the block/heads the same and just a matter of switching the exhaust/intake manifolds??

I also heard that some of the supercharged 3.8l t-birds would fit? not sure what years, that must be some fairly old engines now?

Any advice or suggestions ? For those who have gone through this, what was your decision and how did it work out?

Thanks,
Jaime

 

[jmanng]

checking around, seems it maybe possible to pickup a wrecker engine for $350-550 that supposedly has like 100K kms on it with a 6mth-year warranty? not sure how reliable the mileage numbers are though? I see some wreckers have compression figures and others don't - need to look that up the spec as well... what would be your cutoff if you were going this route, 150?

starting to warm-up to the idea of sacrificing a couple of weekends to get it done... have to look for some write-ups/insight on pulling these motors...

thanks,

 

[Skymarshal]

So are you sure the block is toast? If not you could replace the heads for a lot less money and hassle. While you are at it going with a 99+ intake will up your horsepower from 145 to 190 (but lower your mileage 2-3).

I've had friends get many years of service out of junkyard engines. Just be sure the engine lived under a roof or a hood while it was in the yard, and make sure it wasn't pulled from a car that was wrecked in the front end (you never know how far the damage went). Just go slow and methodically if you swap the engine. It's easy to misroute a hose or forget to plug a sensor back in, and you don't want to have to redo stuff when you finish!

 

[jmanng]

fairly certain, I didn't notice a crack looking at the head from the topside (still bolted on)... but I'm pretty sure it's done and if not cracked, at minimum scratched up pretty good from the valve rolling around in there - engine won't rotate one full revolution so something is jammed in the cylinder.